Posts Tagged ‘awareness’

People have asked me why did I write my book The Awareness Paradigm in fiction, when I wanted to teach leadership theory and behavior. Why write about Cesar and Fletcher, Mark and Redley? Why write about their coach, Julia? It was a way of “showing, not telling.” A way of creating some of the feel and touch of a GISC program.

Whether as student or teacher, my richest learning opportunities contain only small bits of talking at, and lots of opportunity to experience new things through exercises and practicum groups. Where I learn not only from different faculty with varied styles that I resonate more or less to, but also from participants, hearing their stories and sharing my own. And… I have a bit of fun!

Further, I know that we rarely learn from being exposed to something once (okay, maybe being burned would be an exception). We need to engage with it, chew on it, see it again in a different light or a different context, try it, hear it again, etc.

For us, Gestalt learning occurs not just by doing but through reflection, as primary a tool as didactic, experience and practice. With schedules so rushed, many leaders come to leadership training and are both discomforted and refreshed by the time set aside for reflection. Research shows it is a primary skill of highly successful leaders.

They emphasized the importance of learning how to think, and of practice and cumulative engagement (successive relearning of foundational knowledge). One academic who studies strategies that promote durable learning said that students need to learn how to learn. A professor from Harvard Business School explained that they no longer find its case method – talking about what to do – as useful as actually doing. So Harvard is finally figuring out what Gestalt faculty have always known.

How could I create some facsimile of the Gestalt learning experience to teach Gestalt concepts in a book? Experiences. Connection. Practice, repetition, reflection. Fun. How could I create that support which is an important piece of leadership training? I first sought out support for myself as writer, from Joe Melnick – who asked me questions, and kept my going when I flagged.

I thought briefly about writing a book of theory with lots of exercises to try, but I was intrigued by the idea of stories. After all, down through the ages, people have learned through stories, connecting with the characters and internalizing the lessons. We learn best when our whole brain is involved – intellect and emotion.

Most importantly, leadership happens not in a vacuum, but only in relation to others, and our growth as leaders happens in the way we relate to ourselves, so I needed a vehicle to demonstrate the space within and the space between us.

I also knew the characters would have to learn as we all do, incrementally and with fits and starts, defaulting back to old behaviors under stress. This is especially true for adult learners who have fixed patterns that have been reinforced for years. They get excited about something new at a program and then are return home to be bombarded with emails and crises and catch-up, and the new learning tends to slip away. That’s why coaching and ongoing reinforcement is so useful, and why leadership training has far more ROI when that occurs.

I envisioned leaders with unique styles and challenges from different organizations, coming together to solve a common problem. Those first wisps of characters came to life in a role play for which I recruited students in the first GISC coaching program. Although their efforts took just over an hour, that experience allowed me to interact with the characters and see them interacting with one another. They jumped off the page after that, diverging wildly from the participants who played them. A surprise character came in and the story started to have the page turning qualities of a mystery – a bit of fun!

Just as I sometimes forget about reflection for myself, and often have to remind my leader clients to include it in their days, I almost forgot about including reflection for the reader, but it happened by accident. Once the book was designed, there ended up being some blank pages because publishing convention calls for chapters to start on the right facing page. I decided to take those randomly spaced blank left pages and use them as reflection points for the reader. On Joe’s urging, I also added an appendix with a chapter by chapter summary of the plot and primary lessons so a reader or team could go back and reflect alone or together, as well as an appendix of theory for the layman (a bit of didactic, if you will).

There’s no way a simple book could possibly replicate the richness of a Gestalt program, but hopefully, this book will reinforce that richness for those who’ve taken a program, and introduce Gestalt learning and experience to those who haven’t.

The Awareness Paradigm: A Story of Leadership Success is available in GISC’s online bookstore and at your favorite online book retailers.

Nancy Hardaway, MEd, is a member of the GISC faculty and internationally known leadership consultant, combining her experience as a serial entrepreneur and corporate executive with an avid curiosity in human behavior and neuroscience. A former journalist, banker, and CEO, she is a certified leadership coach and holds degrees from Tufts University and Harvard University. Follow Nancy on the Listening 2 Leaders blog.